I am currently designing a circular house for myself with a floor level (just one floor) 10' below ground.

With just 10' of the home (the main central room) visible above ground, giving the exterior of the home a modest, neat and minimal dome-like appearance, with the main 50' circular underground living area a 20' interior ceiling height at the center of the house with a 15' structural glass window in the center of it to bring in natural daylight. The whole house will be constructed using poured concrete formwork giving every wall an 18" waterproof thickness which not only keeps the home very dry, but regulates the interior temperature in winter and summer. This structure will be built to last centuries.

I'm not an architect nor do I have the money to build it yet; I reckon it will cost around €4-7M, but I will have the money to build it someday and thy will be done.

It will have one floating bedroom overlooking the main room 8' above the main floor area covering about 1/10 of the main area below with a 1' wall stopping you falling off the edge containing basically a large bed, a locker and a wardrobe along the opposite exterior wall. Then an additional piano mezzanine for playing piano while looking out one of the three curved windows in the structure with your eves at outdoor ground-level as another floating structure with a 1' wall around it located at another point above the the main large room. The bedroom will have floating concrete stairs up to it with each step as a separate wall-anchored unit. There will be no handrail. The piano mezzanine will feature no stairs as there will be a hidden lift that rises from the ground to transport budding musicians up to play it.

The two large spare en-suite bedrooms, the main bathroom, the W.C., the utility room, the kitchen and the modest swimming pool will all be underground and off the main room with each given a 10' glass structural ceiling that will be flush with the exterior grass and capable of supporting the weight of a ride-on lawnmower.

The main James Bond-esque living room will feature a snooker table, a centrally located marble dining table with 8 colored chairs, a TV sofa entertainment area, a stairs to the floating bedroom, a lift to the piano mezzanine and a breakfast bar area all over a polished concrete underfoot-heated floor. All rooms off the central area will have regular door-width entrances with no actual doors, and the kitchen will have an arch door entrance the width of its room. The interior walls will retain the unpainted yet smooth concrete look with soft-textured colorful furnishings peppered throughout the home to wonderfully contrast the solid minimal industrial looking structure and its clean lines.

The home will be entered via tunnel from the drive-down-in underground triple-garage area located around 40 feet from it. The home will be complimented with the a minimal but beautiful Japanese garden.

...Apple has said it will plant apricot orchards throughout the grounds...

Does no one else see something incredibly wrong here?

If you're insinuating that Apple should be planting apple orchards, well, you're wrong.

Apricots and other stone fruits are the historic crops in this part of Santa Clara County. ... Apples were never a commonly planted crop in western Santa Clara County.

Yeah, I've lived in Silicon Valley for 25 years, and I've never seen any evidence of apple orchards -- just the pitted fruits, like cvaldes1831 said.

However, despite what was reported in the article, Apple's latest landscaping plan for the site shows more types of fruit trees than just apricots; there will also be cherries, plums, olives, and, yes, apples.

Yeah, I've lived in Silicon Valley for 25 years, and I've never seen any evidence of apple orchards -- just the pitted fruits, like cvaldes1831 said.

However, despite what was reported in the article, Apple's latest landscaping plan for the site shows more types of fruit trees than just apricots; there will also be cherries, plums, olives, and, yes, apples.

Would that be Steve, the iPhone and the Android operating system (or will that be the unholy ghost)?

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. Google is the devil. 6-6-6 sounds a lot like search-search-search." That goes a long way to explaining a company that convinces you all it offers is free even though you are it's unwitting prey. Who else would have a motto telling you to not be evil?

PS: I edited my original comment. I'm sure Steve Jobs is Siri which is why it's taking him so long to learn to learn new languages.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

This secret organization obsessed with the number 5 also invented the high five as a way to secretly greet each other in public. However it soon became clear that by swinging ones arm over the head and slapping their hand into another hand doing the same gesture wasn't as subtle as they had hoped. The only flaw in an otherwise perfect plan. They ended up changing to a secret handshake and killing all those exposed. ....and that's how the high five was invented.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

He selected apricot trees for a reason. Just like pretty much everything else Steve did.

I really miss Steve, and I never met him in person. The world isn't the same without him around. But it's not the same because of what he did while he walked among us. This new building is a symbol of just how Apple doesn't take anything lightly. Whatever they do, they want to do the best they can. Good for them, and let's all hope they can hang on to that value system for years to come.

Yeah, I've lived in Silicon Valley for 25 years, and I've never seen any evidence of apple orchards -- just the pitted fruits, like cvaldes1831 said.

However, despite what was reported in the article, Apple's latest landscaping plan for the site shows more types of fruit trees than just apricots; there will also be cherries, plums, olives, and, yes, apples.

Steve's name for Apple comes from his work in Oregon on Apple Orchards, if I recall his Biography correctly.

Apricot Orchards was what Steve mentioned specifically were all around him in his chilldhood.

Historically speaking, Santa Clara has a large Fruit Tree farming mecca before WWII.

Solar panels are great until there is a short and they catch on fire. When there is a short in the wiring under the panels, there is no way to turn off power from the solar panels. Since you can't turn off the sun, the only way to stop the short is to cover the solar panels with blankets which is what fire fighters try to do. If it's not covered, the fire spreads quickly and shorts out the other panels spreading the problem further and faster.

Just have to give a shout out for Washington apples since my grandfather grew them 50 yrs ago there. I believe Washington has considerably more apple orchards than Oregon. But hey, it's not a contest just thought I'd put my .02 cents in.

Any George Carlin fans?
"and now a message from the national apple coalition...
F@ck pears"

I am currently designing a circular house for myself with a floor level (just one floor) 10' below ground.

With just 10' of the home (the main central room) visible above ground, giving the exterior of the home a modest, neat and minimal dome-like appearance, with the main 50' circular underground living area a 20' interior ceiling height at the center of the house with a 15' structural glass window in the center of it to bring in natural daylight. The whole house will be constructed using poured concrete formwork giving every wall an 18" waterproof thickness which not only keeps the home very dry, but regulates the interior temperature in winter and summer. This structure will be built to last centuries.

I'm not an architect nor do I have the money to build it yet; I reckon it will cost around 4-7M, but I will have the money to build it someday and thy will be done.

It will having one floating bedroom overlooking the main room 8' above the main floor area covering about 1/10 of the main area below with a 1' wall stopping you falling off the edge containing basically a large bed, a locker and a wardrobe along the opposite exterior wall. Then an additional piano mezzanine for playing piano while looking out one of the three curved windows in the structure with your eves at outdoor ground-level as another floating structure with a 1' wall around it located at another point above the the main large room. The bedroom will have floating concrete stairs up to it with each step as a separate wall-anchored unit. There will be no handrail. The piano mezzanine will feature no stairs as there will be a hidden lift that rises from the ground to transport budding musicians up to play it.

The two large spare en-suite bedrooms, the main bathroom, the W.C., the utility room, the kitchen and the modest swimming pool will all be underground and off the main room with each given a 10' glass structural ceiling that will be flush with the exterior grass and capable of supporting the weight of a ride-on lawnmower.

The main James Bond-esque living room will feature a snooker table, a centrally located marble dining table with 8 colored chairs, a TV sofa entertainment area, a stairs to the floating bedroom, a lift to the piano mezzanine and a breakfast bar area all over a polished concrete underfoot-heated floor. All rooms off the central area will have regular door-width entrances with no actual doors, and the kitchen will have an arch door entrance the width of its room. The interior walls will retain the unpainted yet smooth concrete look with soft-textured colorful furnishings peppered throughout the home to wonderfully contrast the solid minimal industrial looking structure and its clean lines.

The home will be entered via tunnel from the drive-down-in underground triple-garage area located around 40 feet from it. The home will be complimented with the a minimal but beautiful Japanese garden.

Solar panels are great until there is a short and they catch on fire. When there is a short in the wiring under the panels, there is no way to turn off power from the solar panels. Since you can't turn off the sun, the only way to stop the short is to cover the solar panels with blankets which is what fire fighters try to do. If it's not covered, the fire spreads quickly and shorts out the other panels spreading the problem further and faster. With the entire roof of this huge building covered in solar panels, I really hope they design some kind of motorized covering or foam system to block sun to the solar panels. If they don't, the resulting fire would do massive damage.

I was pretty surprised to see the base isolation-- it seems out of favor for this type of building. But, I guess you don't really mave many options for lateral shear walls to tie everything together. Could it possibly be acting as a single seismic structure with just expansion joints?

It is a low rise steel structure with glass and transparency as main architectural feature. So shear walls are not the best solution. Base isolators are very important in seismic areas and it is really a must if you have sensitive equipments like computers and servers. If you can afford them then you should use them. Check out Pasadena City Hall.

I don't know what you mean by single structure with just expansion joints. Those expansion joints should separate structures completely from the foundation to the roof. They width of the joints need to accommodate structural movement during an earthquake so that the buildings don't touch when they sway. They could be as large as one foot.

Being the tallest doesn't mean as much as it used to mean to me. None of these new race-to-the-top skyscrapers have any differentiation to them anymore. They're all variations on the 'spike that slowly gets sections shaved down as it rises' theme. The Illinois did that in '56, for crying out loud.

The WTC was a revolution in skyscrapers. Taipei 101 had class. The Pentominium looks really interesting, if terrifying, but it's on hold.

Apple's new office building is regional practicality combined with simplicity in a unique form.

If you're insinuating that Apple should be planting apple orchards, well, you're wrong.

Apricots and other stone fruits are the historic crops in this part of Santa Clara County. The street that connects Apple's current HQ on 1 Infinite Loop to De Anza Boulevard is Mariani Avenue; the Apple HQ used to be on Mariani Ave (on the other side of De Anza Blvd) in the company's formative years. The road was named after a farming family (of Croatian origin, if I remember correctly) that used to have orchards in the area.

Today's one of that family's descendants is still farming, albeit in Morgan Hill: Andy Mariani (http://www.andysorchard.com). He's a stone fruit expert. Much of the fruit farming has moved to south Santa Clara County where property is cheaper and more plentiful, however the entire area is superb for stone fruit cultivation.

Three miles north of Cupertino in Santa Clara is the historic C.J. Olson fruit stand. The enormous cherry orchards have long been built over, there's a small heritage cherry orchard in Sunnyvale. In Saratoga -- a few miles south of Cupertino -- the plums were rather famous. There's a heritage stone fruit orchard around the Saratoga Public Library.

The Marianis and Olsons were part of a wave of immigrants in the late 19th century who planted fruit orchards (mostly stone fruit) and vineyards (mostly for wine production). Apples were never a commonly planted crop in western Santa Clara County.

If you walk into a house in west Santa Clara County that was built in the Fifties and Sixties (like an Eichler), there's a good chance there's a heritage stone fruit tree or two in the backyard or maybe a newer one that replaced the original tree(s).

Even today, apricot production is getting squeezed. Brentwood, Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Hollister: those are today's quality apricot growing areas, although many growers have moved away from the fabulous Blenheim apricot to other more commercially viable cultivars.

Planting apricot trees in Cupertino is a tip of the hat to the settlers from 100-120 years ago.

Remember that Steve Jobs grew up in Cupertino, probably would have walked by apricot orchards on his way to Homestead High.

He selected apricot trees for a reason. Just like pretty much everything else Steve did.

Thank you for posting this history. The LA Times has written about the disappearance of Blenheim apricots from cultivation:

Interesting, a bunch of open-air buildings that have nothing to do with office buildings nor would necessarily stand up in an earthquake

But of course you couldn't care less about being accurate or on the point. One out of four is good enough.

The only actual comparison is that neat Chinese building, which can be said to serve much the same purpose as the Apple campus and apparently is also earthquake resistant. Thanks for the link to that. And goodbye.